Instagram’s Threads: all the updates on the new Twitter competitor

US President Joe Biden signed up for a Threads account today, as did the White House, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the second gentleman, Douglas Emhoff.

Biden’s first post on Meta’s X (formerly Twitter) competitor harkens back to his 2020 presidential victory speech with references to the country’s divisions and its current “inflection point.” Harris gestured to her travels throughout the US and her having met “over 100” world leaders, and Emhoff wrote about gender equity and “countering hate of all kinds.”

Mark Zuckerberg revealed Meta is testing a new tagging feature for Threads that’s like hashtags, but not exactly. Yes, you’ll use a hashtag to create or add to a topic’s conversation, but instead of showing up as a hashtagged word, Threads converts it to a blue-text hyperlink. Australian users will get the first crack at it in the initial “limited test” before it gets a wider release.

Typing a “#” into the post text field brings up a card with the topic you’re tagging or other, similar ones. Underneath that, each of the topics comes with a count of posts about it, just like Instagram does.

Meta is rolling out a way for you to delete your Threads profile without having to delete your Instagram account, too. You’ll be able to access the new feature from the settings menu in a new “Delete or Deactivate Profile” section, according to a post from Instagram boss Adam Mosseri. I don’t have the feature yet myself, but I suspect Meta will make it available to everyone soon enough.

This new ability to delete just your Threads profile addresses an early complaint with the app, which currently requires that you sign up with an Instagram account. However, shortly after the app’s launch, Mosseri said the company was “looking into” a way to be able to delete a Threads account on its own. (And if you don’t want to permanently delete your Threads profile, you can always deactivate it.)

Many Threads users are now saying they have the ability to opt out of having their posts shown on Instagram and Facebook. To keep Threads posts from showing up Meta’s other platforms, tap the two lines in the top right of the Threads app > Privacy > Suggesting posts on other apps — two switches let users turn off suggestions on Instagram or Facebook. Meta tends to roll out Threads features slowly, so if you don’t see the new toggles yet, give it time.

Instagram and Facebook each got a “For you on Threads” carousel in the last few months. Responding to user grumpiness, Threads said in October it was “listening to feedback” shortly before testing the opt-out switch that’s rolling out now.

If you don’t like the idea of your Threads posts popping up on other users’ Instagram and Facebook feeds, Meta may soon add a way to stop this. As spotted by reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi, Threads appears to be working on a new privacy setting, titled “Suggesting posts on other apps.”

From what it looks like, the setting will let you prevent Threads from recommending your posts on Instagram, Facebook, or both. Currently, Meta may suggest your Threads posts to other users on either platform if you have a public profile, which is why you might have noticed carousels of Threads posts sandwiched within your Facebook and Instagram feeds lately.

Instagram boss Adam Mosseri said in a reply on Threads last night that his team is working on an API for Threads, despite concern that it would help publishers push content more than it would creators. TechCrunch spotted his reply in a thread in which Platformer’s Casey Newton told another user the lack of a developer API is why Threads has no TweetDeck equivalent.

If the API is robust enough, it could open the platform up to new ideas, expressed through third-party apps and web experiences, about how to actually interact with Threads or view its content. It could also add features that Threads is missing right now, like lists or the ability to follow specific topics.

Meta is going to let you make polls and insert GIFs right from the Threads post composer, the company announced on Thursday. Later in the day, Instagram head Adam Mosseri revealed that the company is testing view counts on Threads posts and pinned posts on profiles and in your replies.

The polls and GIFs features are now rolling out, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated by making a post with a GIF and another post with a poll. They’re small additions, but they’re features you have been able to do on X (formerly Twitter) for a very long time.

The rumors of Threads’ early demise have been exaggerated.

Meta’s competitor to Elon Musk’s X has hit “just under” 100 million monthly users since it was released in early July, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Wednesday during his company’s quarterly earnings call.

Meta is starting to roll out an edit feature and “Voice Threads” for its Threads platform, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Thursday. They’re two major new features for Meta’s burgeoning X-like social network — and unlike on X (formerly Twitter), you won’t need to pay a subscription fee to be able to edit your posts for five minutes after they’re published.

Posts that are edited will have a little icon next to the timestamp showing that they’ve been revised. You aren’t be able to see an edit history — that’s one advantage X still has over Threads — and Meta spokesperson currently doesn’t have plans to add one, Christine Pai tells The Verge.

Threads, Instagram’s X (formerly Twitter) competitor, is struggling to keep users around following its blockbuster launch, according to data from Insider Intelligence. The data, which was first reported on by CNBC, suggests that Threads will have far fewer monthly active users than Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok by the end of this year, but it may still have a chance to close the gap with X.

Insider Intelligence indicates that Threads will have 23.7 million active monthly users in the US by the end of 2023. That’s far fewer than what’s expected for Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, which Insider Intelligence says could have 177.9 million, 135.2 million, and 102.3 million respective US active monthly users by the end of 2023.